Sept 17 2013

9/17/2013

No sleeping in today! Instead, because it’s my busy day, we were up by seven and out of the house about thirty minutes later. Perfect, because it was one of the better breakfasts that they serve at the school! They had funky sesame seed jelly… thingies. Looked like donut holes. But the jelly was super funky and I had no idea what to make of it, so I only ate one of them. But then they had these rolls- similar to the ones with meat tucked in but this time it was this yellowish… stuffing? I can’t eat too much of it at a time but it’s pretty sweet and it was perfect for our breakfast.

We headed to our office. Gymnastics happened- or not, because today it was just announcements. Too often it’s announcements so we’re honestly not really coming that early anymore. I sort of figured out my lessons for a bit [still using some old slides and we can easily use the book which doesn’t take too much preparation], and then read Catching Fire online.

Katie and I had a class at the same time. And from what I heard, ours went about the same: pretty freaking crazy! They kept asking to watch a movie. Very, very persistently. It was a little ridiculous. I was offering them stickers if they were good but no, these kids want a dvd, the stinkers.

Well it never came to that because they were crazy as usual. They did get close, however! We opened our books and I had them start reading over a few things and since I move around the classroom they like to follow me around and suddenly I was in front of the class with most of the class standing in a crooked line, waiting to read to me some of the lines. It was pretty nutty, but it quieted them down for a bit.

However the more kids I sent off with a high five got super rowdy to the point of chasing each other around the room and whatnot. I know, insanity- and I was working with the other kids. Luckily they weren’t too loud and every time they passed by I had them go back to their seats which got them for a moment or two.

So yeah, lots of fun. We had lunch with Magi, which was nice to see her again! She’s so busy these days we never really get to chat. It was pretty decent, and then Katie headed home after that to chill out since she was done with classes for the day. I still had almost 3 hours until my next class, but I felt like that was silly to go home, so I stayed, went over for my older classes and read Catching Fire. And finished Catching Fire, so I started Mockingjay.

Finally, I taught! I don’t remember too much. One kid threw a moon cake to me. I haven’t had any hand eye coordination lately- I have at least 5 things thrown to me in the last two days and I haven’t caught a single one. Definitely working on that! Anyways… well it’s for the Mid-Autumn Festival on Thursday [no classes!], and they celebrate it with eating a ton of moon cakes apparently! Yay! I have two already from my students so that should be fun.

I don’t remember too much about my classes. They love talking, they love attention, and they don’t really care much of what I do, unfortunately. But with my older classes, I get at least half of their attention, so we went through terms for clothes and played around with my box, asking them questions of things I’ve already talked to them with so that’s pretty good.

Grade 3 was pretty crazy as well- I told them if they were good they could get a short dvd/film thing at the end of class, but when it came time to do that, my movie thing didn’t work. But as I walked out, they started putting up what looked like a music video up there, so I guess they did fine! Class 3 is almost easier to handle because I have more structure for the class that I am supposed to work with for Journey, so that’s not too bad!

We went to dinner which wasn’t too exciting- Katie gave Nicole our money for the train tickets. Nicole is such a sweet heart for doing that! And everything for us, really! She really is the best, we adore her.

Activity Time was different- things are always changing here and we never have a clue. It looked like they were doing something formal so we packed our things to go- and as we stepped out, we realized what they were doing- KARAOKE!

It was awesome. Mostly awesome because I’m pretty positive all the kids were mine. I had Stark with two of his friends perform a song in Chinese. They sounded super good, but for all we know they were offkey and terrible but it was awesome. Then a boy and a girl of my Grade 3 class something sang ummm that ‘Money Money Money’ song [Pitch Perfect does a cover of it?] and then another girl who was probably mine sang ‘My Heart Will Go On’ and she did a VERY good job! Katie and I were definitely impressed! After that another two of my girls sang something in Chinese. We stayed out on the balcony, watching. We could see the higher floors where some kids opened the windows and peaked their heads out to watch as well- it was super cute and enjoyable, I loved it!

When the kids got rounded up, Katie and I headed out! We grabbed some yogurts on the way home to enjoy [and carefully avoided a chicken for Katie], and here we are for a peaceful evening!